10 Films That Took Themselves Way Too Seriously

Black Swan made $330 million worldwide on a $13 million production budget and won Natalie Portman an Oscar, but if you scratch the surface you’ll find a Joe Eszterhas movie ripe with corny clichés and cheesy laughs, making you wonder about the Academy’s standards.

Just like the world of (lap) dancing exposed in Showgirls, ballet is really all about sex, as is none-too-subtly shown when Vincent Cassel takes Portman for drinks, inquires if she’s a virgin and suggests she “live a little” by masturbating. Which, in one hilarious scene, she does – unaware her mom’s asleep five feet away.

Black Swan might consider itself High Art, but it’s really just tat with pretensions, the kind of film where every character has a way with sexual innuendo, even the fast food waiter (“Let me know if it’s juicy enough for you!”). Eszterhas specializes in cod psychology, but even he’d draw the line at delineating characters by dressing one in black, one in white, and suggesting our heroine might’ve gone off the deep end by having the eyes of her paintings literally follow her around the room.

Chalk such moments down to director Darren Aronofsky, who also gave us the immortal classics The Fountain and Noah.